Only The Lonely
by soulofanangel
Summary: A joint project of post-eps with Anna, cataloguing the development of Carter and Abby's relationships through season 7, and maybe beyond. Abby's POV
1. Temporary Arrangements

**Author's Note**: Out of the depths of the boredom that are Easter holidays from university, the joy of Channel 4 showing season 7 again, and our love for the dark angst of that series, Anna (aka Charlie) and I have decided to embark upon a very lengthy fic project.

We're going to try and post-ep most of season 7, through the eyes of Abby (me) and Carter (her). We're going to explore the development of the Carby relationship, and both characters' individual developments through this series, and maybe beyond. Some are focused solely on the characters, some on their other relationships, some on just the two of them, some are just plain bizarre.

'Homecoming' is the first episode we're working with, because, well, we felt like it, and also it's the first episode of that season, so it's logical. Really it is.

Though each post-ep is our own individual work, it'll help with your understanding of this post-ep series as a whole if you read ours in tandem – you'll get both points of view of events which come up and you might miss bits otherwise. 

Write something to us, please, whether you love the idea but hate the fics, hate the idea, loved all of it, any comments or criticism or anything, we'd love to have it all.

**E-mail**: promisesanddisappointments@hotmail.com

**Disclaimer**: neither mine, nor Anna's, nor our joint possessions. Much as our deluded little minds think so at times.

**Summary**: If you've forgotten much of what happens for Abby in this episode: at the start of the episode, she's still a med-student, working with Luka; they pretend to work on an old lady who is definitely dead, for the sake of her husband, we see Abby being very sympathetic to the husband. She and Luka have a chat where she tells him she's divorced, Weaver then tells Abby that because of a delinquent tuition cheque (meant to have been paid by her ex-husband) she won't be covered as a med-student for the next 3 months. Abby storms out of the ER, ignoring Luka who calls after her. Next, we see her at a driving range, where Richard is. They have a major row, all in all, we see that the divorce was a good idea ;o)

And that should cover all you might need to know.

**Thanks**: To IAS (aka KenzieGal) and Lanie (aka SunniSkyes) for setting the aims for post-ep writers with their incredible season 9 series. No journals in ours, our plagiarism extends only so far. And to Anna, my dude, for voicing Carter's inner psyche and participating in many random and bizarre chats.

~*~*~*~

**Temporary Arrangements**

~*~

_They'll throw opinions like rocks in riots  
And they'll stumble around like hypocrites  
And is it just me or is it dark in here?  
You may never be or have a husband  
You may never have or hold a child  
You will learn to loose everything  
We are temporary arrangements_

_And they wonder why you're frustrated  
And they wonder why you're so angry  
Is it just me or are you fed up_

'No Pressure Over Cappucino' Alanis Morisette

~*~

_Chicago County Hospital, mid-shift.__   
  
_

Continuing round the hospital, following the job which I love more and more as I seem to be able to do increasing amounts of it with less worry, I think of Dr Kovac, the discussion we've just had, and the patient we've just treated – or pretended to. It's probably not a good idea to be practicing medicine while swimming through your own reflections on your life, but I've done it so often it seems normal; and I think perhaps it is in this place when I venture a glance at some of my co-workers. 

He said working without hope for the prayers of the relatives was part of the job; I suppose it is. We have to care for those left behind as well as those who need our medical help. It's just another way in which Dr Kovac appears to be the perfect hero for every girl – tall, dark, handsome, European, kind, and with a touch of mystery; but I've always distrusted the idea of perfection, it seems too right, too easily broken apart by the slightest touch from me. I remember when I started working here saying something about the image he radiates and the nurses agreeing with me. Yet I still know nothing about his life; talking to him today about my marriage I realise I know nothing about his, nothing about his life in Croatia, nothing about his life in America. He seems to have cut himself off from his past with as much force as possible, cutting out the pain of a tumour with a scalpel. I understand that. It's what I do. There is some deep grief inside him, something which I think I saw behind his words today.

_"He could be worse off if he thought he was responsible."_

_"He does. He's alive, she's not."_

Those words held such bitterness, though his tone seemed as conversational as he ever becomes. I guess it's a reference to the death of his wife, a glimpse into his psyche where he battles with the demons over the fact that his wife died and he is still alive. Yet he seems to live life rather than gliding through it untouched, and he still cares for people and patients. He is the one doctor who has, since Dr Carter, ever seemed to care about me as a person as well as a student who needed to be taught and supervised. I think that was why I found it so strange talking to him about Richard, I don't know how to talk to people about it, why I was so gauche in our conversation.

_"I'm sorry about your divorce."_

_"Don't be. I'm not."_

He offers sympathy about my marriage, whose ending caused me less grief than the ending of his did him, and I respond with defensive humour.

_"Lockhart – that your name or his?"_

_"His. But I'm keeping it. It's the one good thing I got out of the whole mess."_

What a line Abby. 

I guess I've been lucky to work with Dr. Kovac since Dr Carter left. Dr Carter – I wonder how he is; nobody speaks of him really and nobody has said anything to me about him since that day, which will forever be crystal clear for me, back in May. I wonder why I cared so much when I saw him, in that trauma room; in some strange way, his action cut me to the core. Maybe because I still felt some of that connection. The connection I thought there was on the rooftop before it all went so wrong on Valentine's Day? His words on that evening somehow reached me deeper than any others from anybody else could have done. Maybe because…because he's a fellow addict. And one I felt so much understanding for. He thought nobody could read him, but in some strange way I saw what he was thinking, because I'd been there. I knew why he was in his mental hell, and maybe that was why he seemed so hurt when he knew I'd reported him. Why he retaliated so quickly with such a flashing denial against me personally.

_"Maybe you're the one on drugs Abby. Yeah, I think I saw you with a needle once."_

I think that maybe that was why it almost killed me to tell Dr Greene; because I knew they wouldn't understand what he was doing, wouldn't understand the inner demons within that scream out to be silenced, demons which drove him to this ultimate self-destruction we seem to have shared. Not that we've really shared anything. I did understand, and I betrayed him by turning my back on that, by casting it off onto others who had no personal chains to his situation. I was a coward, I should have told him then, I have to tell him when, if, he comes back. I need him to understand that I did understand.

The death of the old lady today brought me back to the first death under my care in this ER, and Dr Carter's understanding on the roof. The woman today and her husband had obviously cared for each other for years, and while I can distance myself from the patients themselves better more easily now, for my own sanity and self-preservation, I understood what Dr Carter truly meant.

_"You never get used to it."_

No. You can't get used to the death of an old person, you can't accept that anyone has to die, you can't get used to watching someone's heart breaking into pieces too small to pick up and glue back together again, as they realise the companion of their life is gone never to return to them. The broken husband needed to be with his wife even in death.

_"Can I stay with her?"_

_"As long as you like."_

Is there something else I could have said? Something else that perhaps would have helped him to make more sense of the tragedy which has torn his life apart. I wonder if Dr Kovac or Dr Carter would have made him feel better somehow. Would have known what to say.

Selfishly, I wonder if I'll ever know companionship and love that means a whole life like that. I am a bitch.

~*~

_Travelling, mid-afternoon _

Leaving the hospital, and looking at my watch, I know exactly where he'll be. At the driving range, the same place he's always gone to on a Thursday afternoon for the past three years. The place he used as his explanation for where he was when he was screwing one of his 'flings', another of the huge number of women he preferred to spend time with rather than me. And, the reason for my acceptance of his flimsy excuses and lies for so long – it didn't really reflect that much of a change in his behaviour. We never thought a couple should live in each other's pockets, but it seems it is in fact possible to go too far in the other direction quite easily as well. We never could cope with being on top of each other; we never wanted to be able to read exactly what the other was thinking and doing. We thought that was a good thing at the time – sure, a good thing in the build up to the hellish divorce it has been proven to be. Maybe we never were the perfect couple we thought we were.

I walk through the crowd of janitors striking to try and raise their salary by a meagre dollar, which the hospital administration refuses them. I envy them as I shift the barriers blockading the ambulance bay, smiling at the couple of workers I recognise and nodding at them to show some vague level of support; I envy them because they can and do fight for what they want, what they need. Their fight isn't destroyed by wracking human passions, like those between Richard and me. I am unable to even fight properly for what he owes me for; all I feel when with him is such burning, bitter hatred that it kills my strategy and leaves me screaming, incompetent, at him again. This time I resolve to speak clearly, this time I resolve to get what I want, what I deserve for the hell I lived with him. This time will be the time I sort it all out. Though it's too late now, Weaver made that clear.

_"You don't understand Abby. Once a clerkship is pulled, it's pulled. You have to wait until the next academic quarter."_

Three months before I can start my medical training again. One year behind on my programme – damn Richard, his determination to irreparably fuck up my life seems to never die. This time it will never happen again. He owes me, and I will get it from him.

I remember happier times though. Times before it went wrong, before Maggie relapsed yet again, before I discovered the depths of happy oblivion which I could reach with alcohol, before Richard decided screwing whores was worth the risk he took with our marriage, worth the destruction of me and us. Before…before my abortion. That, cliché-ridden as the whole affair was and still is, really was the beginning of the end I think – there was no way for us to return from that situation. In that way, I guess I was as much to blame for the divorce as him; he may have increased our physical separateness, but it was me who separated us so far emotionally. I hastily shove thoughts of that time to the back of my mind, I never think of that for long, it's behind me, it's over. The happier times; times when we laughed, times when we totally understood the each other, times when we clicked in every way and thought we could survive the world and my family. College, our wedding, our first apartment. What could have been had life not decided to play games with me once again is so clear in every way and so different from the mess I seem to be scrambling through in a desperate attempt to even survive it all. Don't look back, don't look back. 

~*~

_Grocery store, on the way home_

The shelves of alcoholic drinks in the grocery store tempt me so much; the desire for alcohol doesn't seem ever to diminish as I work through life trying to remain sober. This day has been hellish, and I haven't felt as close to relapsing in a long while. I wonder why I've even come grocery shopping now, there's nothing I need particularly. I could do my grocery shopping Monday night, as I always do, as part of the routine I've tried to develop on my own. Part of the routine that I've come to depend on, which is my only security now. 

I need something to fall back on, something to focus on to draw my mind away from the clear liquor which is screaming out to me to be placed in the basket. But I know that if I fall now I will never be able to climb back. I have to keep proving it to myself; I have to keep saying the same things to myself to get through this. Alcohol makes it all better now, but so much worse in the morning. I know that, I know I have to kill my dependency on it. I will do so, I have to do so. I had done. It's behind me now, I did it without Richard – though it tore us apart, it drove him to his 'whores'. I know it was my fault, the past, but it still has the power to come back to me clearer than my present.

I wander round the store, gazing at the displays, unable to decide on anything to buy. My mind won't focus on the products in front of me, instead it drifts through my memory from the full colour snapshots I see inside of me, ranging from my day today to the longer, panoramic, black and white films from further back in my life. Turning into a new aisle I see shelves of powders for hot drinks stretching away from me, shelves along which I look for a jar that will comfort me as hot drinks are supposed to. In the middle of the aisle is a selection of jars of Horlicks, a sight that sends my mind rooting through the oldest, least worn cinema reels of my past. My father used to make Horlicks for Eric and me when we were younger, before we were sent to bed, I don't think I've drunk it since he left. It rings back to a time in my life when I wasn't responsible for the craziness surrounding me, for the walls crashing down, a time when there was someone to do the worrying for me, someone I depended upon. Maybe it will bring me some comfort, with a newfound resolution I decide to try it again. 'A soothing malt drink which promotes natural sleep' the jar tells me. 'Soothing' and 'natural sleep' in the same jar? It's worth a try, I decide. Having made one decision to turn to food for my source of comfort this evening, the rest of my shopping seems to become more obvious. Ice cream, pizza and magazines. 

~*~

_Home, End of a day _

Reaching home, my 'condo' as my son-of-a-bitch ex-husband calls it, the apartment he is paying for right now – I insisted that if the whore had apartment, I should get one too - I dump the groceries on the cheap plastic kitchen side; I'll unpack later, I never buy anything particularly perishable. Right now I need a cigarette, and I fumble in my pocket for the pack of 20 Malboro' Lights and my matches which are always there. Cigarettes have been my constant companions for many years, unlike people and alcohol they don't mess with my emotions and their dark bitterness reflects me inside. It also warns so-called sympathetic listeners off, smokers don't appreciate intrusions upon their lonely nicotine reflections. Cigarettes create a hazy barrier between me and the world, but I'm grateful for any protection I can get nowadays, I don't like the world reaching me anyway, it's too dangerous.

I glance at the clock and notice that it's 6.30pm, too late now to call my lawyer, the promise I yelled at Richard as my parting declaration of continuing our war.

_"You are in violation of our divorce agreement. I am hiring a lawyer, and I am getting my tuition money."_

_"Take it all. Take the debt with it."_

I don't particularly want to continue this fighting, it drains me emotionally and physically, yet I still fill with a burning hatred when I think of how much of me I gave to that bastard, and the pittance I receive in turn.

_"I only fed, clothed, sheltered you."_

That surely meant something to him? Didn't it? Our plan to put each other through med school seemed so eminently workable so long ago. I may not be worth much, but the guy I fell in love with would have deemed it fair, even in divorce, to pay me what he'd promised. To ensure that we'd given off the same amount at the end.   
Where did that guy go? To the sluts who gave him something that I apparently couldn't, something I didn't realise he needed. I can't claim that I changed and became bitter – my bitterness has been a part of me for years, a result of my life with my mother. But what happened to us as a couple? 

Abortion, alcoholism, cheating – we had no chance of making it really. Life would be so much easier if I could point at a particular event and declare that that was where it all went wrong, that that is where we can place the blame for the collapsing rubble that is our marriage. Instead, everything mounted up to start this blazing, unstoppable, fire, as it always does. Small emotions and events built into minor calamities, which worked together to wreck everything I'd struggled for. Story of my life. Bitter? Me?

I wonder how long it will take me to solve my life. I wonder if, in fact, that will ever be possible or even something I will be able to realistically contemplate. Richard's harsh and bitter words have throbbed in my brain since I heard them. 

_"I didn't make you unhappy, depressed and miserable. You did that all by yourself."_

Well, yeah, maybe I did, but he didn't help. I thought marriage was supposed to be a source of support? Trying to label our marriage as that makes me laugh, bitterly, but it's the first sign of my, apparently fast disappearing, warped sense of humour that I've seen in days and I suppose I should be grateful I can at least still physically laugh. I was beginning to wonder. I should be used to him, to this, by this stage; the divorce was supposed to free me from the hatred we felt for each other, and it hasn't. I guess there really are no easy solutions to anything, but that never seems to stop me searching for them.

I've wanted to be a doctor for years, they often say that kids who have a lot of contact with illness grow up wanting to work as doctors or nurses, I guess that could be true for me. Following that logic, I should be interested in mental illness it seems, but I was never going to want to work in a psychiatric department, never wanted to put myself through that from any active choice. My mother isn't my choice, you can't choose your relatives, a fact which has been the curse upon my life. Not that I seem to do that much better with those I do choose – Richard may have been different to Maggie, but he wasn't a better thing in any way, it turned out. 

Med-school was my chance to change my life, my chance to think that if Richard put me through it, maybe he wasn't the inhuman demon wrecking my life he seems to want to be, but I've been betrayed again. My chance is gone. I'm not sure I can ever change my life in any notable way now. Seeing those med-students today beginning their ER rotations made me realise how I can never be one of them, perhaps never again. They were so young, so believing in the good that we do and the worthiness of their calling to be a doctor. I'm too old to be one of them, have lived too much. I'm too harsh to be one of them; I have too many edges from life to be the kind of doctor they will all become. Though Dr Kovac and Carter both have edges of splintered glass, and they are better at caring than I have ever been or ever will be. 

OB nursing is where I'm headed again I guess – the joy of new life to distract me, hopefully, from the dying pain of my own. 

I curl up on the sofa, Horlicks on the table beside me, and turn the television on, flicking through the channels. There is nothing on at 2.30am, never is. But it's the only companion I have right now. I won't be sleeping tonight, I know this pattern. It has become my best friend in recent months.

~*~*~*~

**Author's Note**: Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it at least slightly. If you haven't already, toddle over to Anna's fic and read hers – but, if you felt like leaving me a review before you leave, I'd be forever grateful :o) This is a big project, and while we might continue it anyway, we'd like to know that at least one person was reading it.


	2. When You Feel All Alone

**Author's Note**: Massive thanks to everyone who reviewed. We're back again with another post-ep; this time for 'Sand and Water', the second episode of season 7 and with quite a few events for both Carter and Abby and their relationship.

Reviews, especially constructive ones, are manna from heaven to writers.

**Disclaimer**: Neither Anna's nor mine, much as our deluded little minds like to think so at times.

**Summary**: For Abby, in this episode: Carter arrives at an AA meeting, slightly late, and sits at the back, Abby is sitting a few rows in front of him, she turns round and their eyes meet and they smile at each other. Later, she's working as an OB nurse, then she's called down to the ER because there aren't any residents around. She spends most of the episode there with a couple whose baby was born at only 22 weeks old – not physically developed enough to live more than a few hours. She doesn't go back up to OB and gets yelled at by the OB attending because there was a complication with the couple she was looking after before she went down to the ER. At the end of the episode she goes into Doc Magoos, sees Carter sitting there and has a chat with him, in which she tells him she's an alcoholic who's been sober for 5 years, and he asks her to be his sponsor.

Anything else you should be able to understand from the post-ep.

To Anna, bonne anniversaire ma chere, and to Kitty and Jen for random, deep and superficial chats, whenever and wherever.

~*~*~*~

**When you feel all alone**

~*~
    
    _When you feel all alone_
    
    _And the world has turned its back on you_
    
    _Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart_
    
    _I know you feel like the walls are closing in on you_
    
    _It's hard to find relief and people can be so cold_
    
    _When darkness is upon your door and you feel like you can't take anymore_
    
    _Let me be the one you call_
    
    _If you jump I'll break your fall_
    
    _Lift you up and fly away with you into the night_
    
    _If you need to fall apart_
    
    _I can mend a broken heart_
    
    _If you need to crash then crash and burn_
    
    _You're not alone_
    
    _When you feel all alone_
    
    _And a loyal friend is hard to find_
    
    _You're caught in a one way street_
    
    _With the monsters in your head_
    
    _When Hopes and dreams are far away and_
    
    _You feel like you can't face the day_
    
    _Because there has always been heartache and pain_
    
    _and__ when it's over you'll breathe again_
    
    _You'll breathe again_
    
    **Savage****Garden 'Crash and Burn'**

~*~

_AA Meeting, morning_

The room is the same as they always are, I wonder where they find so many rooms all the same in one city. They're as boring as possible, probably intentionally so to stop the drunks getting distracted during our time of supposed concentration on recovery. The uniformity of them all is supposed to be comforting and reassuring I think, I find it disagreeable, somehow wrong. The straight rows of hard seats remind me too much of lecture halls; the cheap coffee at the back too much of student love with Richard. I squirm in my seat – carefully choosen as not too far forward, not too obviously at the back - a little, trying to find a more comfortable position in which to get through the next hour or so, trying to convince myself to focus and to comprehend. I have to be here, boring as it is, I need to come to remain sober, and I've not been here that often recently; excusing my absence to myself with the stress of divorce and med-school; neither of which work as valid excuses anymore. The depth of my desire for a drink after the most recent row with Richard frightened me, and made me determined to make more of an effort to come more often to a meeting.

One woman begins reading out the steps and I relax in the comfort and familiarity of the scene around me; twenty or thirty strangers gathered together in search of the same goal, slouching in their seats like being back at school with a boring religious studies teacher you can't escape from in the next hour. The old-timers separate into those who come because they know they can't relapse and sit there in boredom but admire the atmosphere anyway and those who come because for them it is a source of peace, who strain eagarly to hear the words they have heard twenty thousand times before and never fail to help them somehow. Guess which one I am. The slightly newer ones separate also, this time into those who are uncomfortable being here, who don't know how they should act and want to fit in, and those who are already devotees and listen enthusiastically to the teacher at the front of the classroom.

Turning slightly in my seat as she continues, my attention wandering despite my hardest efforts, I survery the group of people in the room to see if anyone I recognise is here. I start slightly, and am surprised greatly; behind me to the right is Dr Carter – someone I recognise, certainly, but definitely not someone I expected to see here. I didn't realise he was even back in Chicago, didn't even know if he was ever coming back. He catches my eye and makes a small smile upon his face, his expression difficult to understand – I still don't know whether he will ever be able to forgive me for going to Dr Greene and Dr Weaver when I saw him injecting himself. I smile back, and turn quickly to face the front again, unable to look at him, it's too weird. I wonder what he thinks upon seeing me here; if he ever thought about me at all, except to curse me to hell and beyond, I imagine this is one of the last places he would expect to find me. What a hypocrite he must think I am. What a hypocrite I am. I hope he realises I did know where he was coming from, that it was my knowledge of addiction which made me take the path I chose three months ago. 

The steps finish, people share, people talking and talking endlessly as if it's the solution to all the problems in the world. Well, it's what they teach as the solution to one problem here, and it gets us all through it somehow. I sigh, knowing I should probably share, having only done so about four times ever, but knowing I won't. I stop listening particularly to the individual stories, letting everything swim around me, only the moral of the evils of addiction sinking in. Terry and Mary, people different to me and yet the same, something which I seem in some way unable to accept. I need to be different; I want to be unqiue. But I'm not, I can't be. The demons in our heads which clamour to be silenced are all the same, demons which we can send to sleep, but can awaken at any moment without warning, are calmed by the repetitive, unchanging progression of a meeting, something so familiar it has lullaby tones for me now. 

The end of the meeting comes and I glance behind me to my right again, seeing Dr Carter just beginning to move from his seat. I remember our last conversation all too clearly, his hatred for me, for the way in which I ruined his life and all that he had worked for both inside and outside the hospital. I doubt he would even want to acknowledge me should we be forced to have contact here. Why would he – the past 3 months and the hell of rehab he has just lived through are my fault. I'm still not sure that my choice of action was the best thing to do, but there was nothing else. I **had** to do something, I couldn't just leave him to spiral further and faster out of anyone's control except that of belonging to the drugs. I decide to leave quickly, avoid him so he doesn't have to face me and my hypocriscy, and slide out of the end of my row heading straight for the door. Fortunately I don't know anyone here more than to say 'Hello' to at the beginning and end of meetings, not well enough for someone to call after me to share their store-brought pastries and delay my escape so he has to face me.  

~*~

_ER, afternoon_

My fury upon seeing that Neo-natology attending lecturing students over the bed of the baby took me by surprise.

_"The father is standing outside thinking you are saving his baby. How long would you like to torture him?"_

I'm convinced it was justified rage, but I'm not so sure it was a wise move for me profressionally. Attendings hate being shown up, hate being criticised or appearing wrong. But I had to say something, had to do something. I could see the face of the father and the desperate prayers he was uttering just outside the trauma room. The sudden, smallest flicker of hope, almost invisible and nearly extinguished as quickly as it was sparked, changing his expression and causing his intense concentration on us through the door. The killing of such hope probably hurt him more than his first realisation that he would lose this child. Hope is possibly the cruellest gift one can be given – the grief at its loss is worse than having always accepted that there is nothing.

Why couldn't I stand up like that to Dr Coburn? Why do I care so much what others judge me as and how can I change that? Why am I so worried about failure and criticism? Why can I never stand up for myself until it is too late, yet I find it easy to defend the rights of others? Is that a good thing? Or does it just increase my talented performance as a doormat which I seem to be destined to repeat ad infinitum for the rest of my life?

Rhetorical questions are spinning ceaslessly inside my head.

I'm grateful to Dr Greene for stepping in and saving me from more scolding – Dr Coburn all too often makes me feel like I'm 13 and caught smoking behind the bikesheds at high school again. I'm annoyed with my emotions for being so easily affected by others. Strangely, Dr Greene was so often the one I turned to for extra assisstance as a med student, but I feel almost no real connection to him as a person. I'm sure he's a nice guy and everthing, but I'm not sure how much we'd understand each other's thoughts if we knew each other better. I feel like I know Dr Kovac more, there's some strange connection between us and I think he feels it too. Our conversations seem to have none of the strain that so many of my others do, and he understands my need to try and save everything. When I was so desperate to save this poor baby that I wanted to intubate even though I did really know there was no chance of success he understood that, and didn't criticise, condemn or find me strange for wishing so hard there was a way to help I started to believe there might be.

The poor mother; the terror in her voice as she cried for us to try and save her baby will haunt me in my dreams tonight, if I manage to have any. The way she pleaded for us to help her, the way she sobbed to try and understand why this was happening to her.

_"Please save him. Please save my baby."_

There's no comprehensible reason for why fate seems to choose random victims for it's malevolence. The eternal hope they held for their child, which was slaughtered so violently, so randomly. If only there was something we could gain from all their pain, if only it had been forwarding something.

_"We tried for almost two years to get pregnant, and finally gave up. And then, suddenly, I was! Look at him! He's hanging on. I counted ten little fingers and ten little toes. He looks perfect. Just a little small."_

He was so small, so indescribably tiny, helpless and defenceless. In the first moment I looked at his mother cradling him safely against the world I understood how all-consuming maternal love could be. Some cases hit you harder than others – however often you practice distancing yourself emotionally from the patients, sometimes you can't and those are the time when you want to freak and scream and cry and need comforting yourself but can't have it because dealing with it is your job and you shouldn't let it affect you. There was nothing I could say to the parents, nothing that could have comforted or consoled them for the loss of the miracle they'd worshipped for 22 weeks. Just that sometimes, life sucks and there's nothing we as doctors and nurses can do about it.

I'm sorry for not being there for my patient upstairs in OB. I'm sorry something went wrong. I'm sorry she was scared. I'm sorry I can't be everywhere. I'm sorry I can't do everything. I'm sorry I can't save everything. I'm sorry I couldn't help Regina. I'm sorry I can't do anything for the baby. I'm sorry for trying. I'm sorry for failing. I'm sorry everyone. I'm sorry.

It was never meant to be like this.

~*~

_Home, evening_

I let myself into my apartment with my keys and my bags and let them thud onto the table with a tired sigh. The day and all the disparate emotions it forced from me has drained me so much mentally that I feel physically exhausted, but strangely calm. Still, I feel the need to indulge myself slightly and have a soporific mind soothing session. Hence I find myself heading straight for the bathroom and turning on the gushing tap of hot water to fill the bath and allow myself to drown all my tension and fears from today. Sinking into the creamy with soapy bubbles water, the surroundings glimmering softly in the kind flickers of candlelight and old music playing on the radio from the lounge the scene feels similar to a thousand of the same picture from movies and the relaxed atmosphere sends my thoughts drifting backwards in time to the end of my shift.

Me, a sponsor. How wrong that sounds: me, a failed med-student, with a failed marriage and a nicely stereotypically dysfunctional life. Almost as wrong as me witnessing the baptism of the baby today. But both were things I felt I had to do to make others feel better, irrespective of my worthiness to be there. I'm not sure that it is a good thing for Carter to turn to me, there is no sense in which I am a good example of how to be a person, but I couldn't see how to reject the idea without being rude and uncaring especially when he was advancing such arguments. Also, even though he seemed maybe grateful to me for being the cause of his rehab, I still feel slightly guilty. I think perhaps I think that I should have noticed it earlier, having been there in some sense myself I should have understood what was happening sooner and provided him with earlier relief from it and been there for him.

I'm not the right person to come to when people need help solving their problems, but he didn't seem to care. I want him to get better, and much as I would love to help with that, I'm worried that I will hinder his progress, or at least not advance it like I should. In a strange way I want to help him desperately though, want to help him to recover, want to save him, as he is in many ways my past and I want to repair, want to change that. Even though I know I can't, in some way I feel that maybe if I help him I will have made a start on the reparations I owe the world from when I fucked up so badly.

I guess I don't need to worry about whether he'll ever be able to understand why I acted like I did or forgive me for it anymore – it was he who spoke to me in Doc Magoos and he seemed to accept that I needed to tell Dr Greene and Dr Weaver. He told me that I might have saved his life, a possibility I suppose, and one I think I did realise at the back of my mind, but not one I ever focused on consciously. 

This understanding I seem to share with him is so strange. This is the first time in my life, I think, that I have been able to 'get' another person so easily, and for them to 'get' me. I'm not sure why this has happened with Carter, nor am I sure why we're so relaxed with each other so quickly in the new level of our relationship. I found it easy to trust him to give me casual sympathy over my med-school suspension without pushing into furious rage at Richard. There's no one else who is able to gauge my emotions so well to such an accurate degree.

_"It's only a coffee,"_ he said – only a coffee, maybe, but still a sign of me relinquishing some of my control over my life, allowing someone else I hardly know really to help me. Our future friendship seems to have been established so easily, quickly and simply. It feels so natural to laugh and joke with him. To bond over our shared vices of nicotine and hot fudge sundaes.

Can I help him? I know he needs someone, I know he needs someone to understand the loneliness and isolation that comes from an addiction. He's not alone, and he needs a sponsor who can show him that. I'm not sure that that person is me, but his certainty was tonight enough to overcome my doubts whichare now increasing with worry over him. But then, maybe helping him will help me and we can recover together. Now, _that's_ an optimistic thought. You never know, it could happen, however unlikely. 

~*~

_AA meeting, some days later_

The meeting finishes much like any other, after so many of them they all blur into one with indistinct features and characteristics and the repetitive pattern becomes a soothing lullaby to lull you into a sober stupor. I'm a shit sponsor; often I worry that it's turning out to be better for me than it is for Carter – I've not been to so many regular meetings since my first year of sobriety. It's just that I'm not sure this helps Carter much in any way. Not that he says much about it anyway – I'm his sponsor, I should know more about how he's doing than he tells me without prodding. Maybe it's because I'm so fearful of revealing my own personal path to hell, which has been so well worn that is the cause of our lack of true conversations. We need to communicate more; a truth for all my relationships with people – lack of communication is the cause of the wreckage of every one.

"How many are you up to now?" I ask him as we leave the monotone room, trying to create a conversation between us but my lack of verbal communication skills are a severe hindrance. He doesn't seem to notice this – his upbringing probably included lessons on how to handle those with no social graces – and continues amiably enough. As comfortable a conversation as can be expected between people in such a close situation who know so little about each other. Whatever connection I feel with him, I can not be sure that he feels it too, or pretend that I know him well. 

"In Chicago? 15. One for each day I've been back. Fun, huh?" He jokes about it, tries to sound like he's coping fine with all the surrounding issues clinging to his central one of recovering from addiction, but I know the façade too well as it is so often my daily act and I see through it. I'm worried about him though, it's not like I expect him to be happy immediately upon his return to Chicago and without an on-going addiction to screw him up, but he seems distant in many ways. Often he is absorbed in his thoughts, not letting the world in or affect him in any way. I think maybe I blocked much of this stage of my own recovery from detailed memories – they do say the mind does forget the worst pain you experience, it's why women can have more than one child.

I search my mental bank of cliches to try and comfort him – knowing that it will mean little to him, but knowing also that he knows I know that and it's the fact of me saying something which could mean something in his darkest hours which is what is important. "You're getting there. Uh - slow but steady?" He accepts the cliché-laden job of the sponsor and shrugs my comment off with a nochalent, uncaring remark. I hope that what I said did penetrate his thoughts though, cliché as it is, it is actually a truth.

He changes the subject with remarkable deftness – obviously unwilling to dwell on his recovery right now, but accepting that we will talk about addictions and AA. "How often were you here before it became part of your duty?"

I laugh at this – he clearly doesn't know me, or see through me as much as I thought he did. Or maybe he does and chose this anyway as an easy, unawkward, change of subject necessitating no revealing comments from either of us about our lives. "Not as often as I should have been," I admit to him. He grins suddenly, what appears to be maybe the first natural smile I've seen on his face since his return, and remarks ironically upon my obvious dedication to the AA programme and it's conscientious observance. The relaxed tone of the conversation is a wonderful change from most of my human interaction right now, and slipping into easy banter with him seems natural. Nice to find a friend in the most unexpected places.

A child dashes past us on roller blades and as I duck aside to avoid the humiliation of being run over by him I reply to Carter. "I told you you should go for anybody else," knowing that he will realise why I accepted the task in the end and that I understand why he asked me.

 "Didn't want anybody else," he says, then follows it up quickly, seemingly worried about how I'm judging him. Strangely, I'm actually not judging him at all. "I would have had to talk to other people, I wouldn'thave known them, it would have been awkward...." I smile at him and reassure him once again that I actually don't mind doing it – it was concern for his recovery and whether I'd actually be any use as a sponsor which caused my reluctance to agree to sponsor him, not a distaste for either him or the task. Having delivered myself of my immediate reaction to his words, my brain then processes what he actually said and picks up on the fact that he seems to be strangely scared of going to the meetings and talking to people. I wonder why. Maybe because he's not sure whether he'd ever have much in common with many of them despite addiction; something about which he is right, but it's not always necessary to have much in common to be able to talk easily to someone. Maybe it's more from his obvious fear of being judged and concern of what people think of him, something which I also have, but to a lesser degree. I try to reassure him about the ease of talking to people at the meetings, knowing he'll have to start doing so soon. He seems maybe slightly grateful for the effort, and asks whether I know anyone else at this particular meeting.

"No," I admit. "You coming saves me from having to be on my own," I joke instead, trying to emphasise again that I honestly don't mind being his sponsor, and, in all seriousness, am appreciative of the company of someone I can chat to easily and understand as a friend as well as as a fellow addict.

"Glad I could be of service. You want a coffee or something?"

"Sure," I agree, pleased with the oppurtunity to try and have a slightly longer discussion with him and discover more about his character. I remember that he paid for the last coffee we had though, and want to redress the balance. "As your sponsor, I feel I should buy it though." He agrees, perhaps realising that I wouldn't go if I wasn't allowed to pay this time, though it probably goes against many of his natural instincts; not that I think he is chauvinistic, merely politely old-fashioned which I do appreciate, but I don't want to owe him anything nevertheless.

We slip into Doc Magoo's, maybe not the most classy or secluded of locations but the closest and therefore the most convenient as we live in different directions from the hospital. We manage to find a booth and I order the coffees, and then look straight at Carter for the first time since we left the meeting, trying to see if I can read any more of him from his countenance. He looks tired and drawn, his face pale and the grey smudges under his eyes look like rubbed charcoal they are so dark. I hesitate slightly, wondering if I do in fact know him well enough to tackle this, and decide to give it a shot anyway. I think he's probably too polite to actually rebuff me and I'm worried about him, as a friend first and then as a sponsor. "You look like shit. When do you start back at County?" I'm hoping Dr Weaver and Dr Greene gave him another couple of weeks off, because he does look like hell and maybe a longer rest would make him more able to cope with the frantic chaos of the ER when he does return. But then again, he has been off for nearly 4 months now, and maybe it is continual boredom which is making him so withdrawn and some activity might at least tire him out enough to get him to sleep.

"Two days, and counting. But then another five years before they let me work on anything more urgent than UTI's and nausea." He seems sad and desolate at this, an apathetic depression hovering mistily over his face which is perhaps more worrying than tears and rage. I try to buck him up by forcing plain and harsh common sense upon him.

"Don't be stupid. They wouldn't want a resident who can't treat anyone." While I would like a closer glimpse inside his psyche, I feel he would be made uncomfortable if I forced the issue now. I try to pry more gently into his emotions by asking a question where he can easily divert me with an automatic response, though he hope he will let me close to the truth than that. "You having a bad day?"

His hand fiddles with coffee cup in nervous energy, he seems to be having trouble deciding how much of what to say. "I'm having a bad month," he settles on at last. More than I expected to glean from him, and while it is normal for returners from rehab to feel unsettled for a few months I have been told, I have an inexplicable desire to make it all better for him and look after him.

"Adjusting back to reality harder than you expected?"

"Than I expected?" he says in what appears to be a question, but I make no reply, waiting instead to see if he has anything more to offer. He shakes his head and continues. "No. Than I wanted, yes. It's like this… big mistake that I made, but I'm trying to make up for, but it's always going to be there."

I understand exactly what he is saying, his thought processes are a scary mirror image of mine 5 years ago. I struggle through my vocabulary, trying to find words to express some emotion to him, let him know that he's not alone and I do understand. I **do**. "It never goes away. But it does get easier to live with." He seems appreciative of my words, and though he speak lightheartedly I know how scared he is and how much he needs reassurance, even from someone as unworthy of giving it as me. I smile into his eyes, forcing him to look at me. "Yeah. You realise that, sure, you might be an addict, but that's not all you are, not all you can be. It's a part of who you are, but not a limitation – only if you let it be."

He seems suddenly to decide that we've said enough for today, and I wonder whether I said something wrong, but decide that he is probably worried about letting all his inner demons out. They're easier to control when locked in the mental cages we spend so much time and care constructing. "I have to sleep. You want a ride home?"

I decide not to push it right now; he's right, we will both probably benefit from some sleep and get further tomorrow. I refuse his offer of a lift – it's out of his way and the El is quick and convenient, well, for public transport it is. 

"I'll walk you to the El. I'll meet you outside tomorrow."

As we reach the station my train is approaching, killing at birth the thought of any further conversation. I step onto the train, and claim a seat with no problem for once. Talking to Carter at the start of his recovery does drag me back to the start of mine, and makes me less emotionally stable. My thoughts take a wandering path, meandering uncontrollably from the reasons for my alcoholism to Carter to Richard to whether Carter and I will be close friends after this whole AA programme and flowing unmappably. I look at my future as I alight from the train and find that for almost the first time in my life I have no idea what is going to happen and what relationships I will form with anyone I have met recently. The lack of control terrifies me, and I'm somehow glad to have the reassurance of the daily company of Carter for the forseeable future.

~*~*~*~

**Author's Note**: thank you for reading, now you can reward yourself with many bars of chocolate. But not until you've reviewed…


	3. New Phases and Old Faces

**Spoilers**: For 'Mars Attacks', episode 3 of season 7

**Summary**: there's a noticeable lack of any meaningful Carby interaction in this episode, but we can't have heaven every week ;o) Abby is working up in OB as a nurse when she's called down to the ER by Weaver. She bitches about this to Carter – who bitches to her about not being allowed to use any instruments - and then gets even more annoyed when she discovers Weaver and the nurse manager have changed her to an ER nurse without consulting her. She spends most of the episode showing what a brilliant nurse she is, a 'super-nurse' if you want, and all the doctors and patients like her, blah blah blah. She banters with Luka and does a little bit of sponsoring with Carter who's having a hard time adjusting to all the rules he has to follow. Then the ER's hit with a massive trauma, there aren't enough doctors, she and Luka are working on a trauma together, Luka tells her to put in a chest tube which she's not allowed to do as she's now a nurse, she says she can't, then does when he tells her again. Kerry appears as she's finishing up, and freaks at both of them. Afterwards, she's sitting on a bench in the ambulance bay, Luka comes up, they have a really sweet talk, he's really nice to her, she impulsively kisses his lips, then realises what she's done and pulls back, giggling, and walks into the ER happy as he giggles.

And all the Luby shippers squealed with joy, and all the Carby shippers threw stuff at the tv.

**Disclaimer**: if I owned them, would I really write this stuff? Honestly now ::rolls eyes:: 

**Author's Notes**: um, sorry for delay? We took a break for Easter holidays, university work, general laziness and the joys of making Anna get utterly bewildered by the London Underground. What else? Oh, yeah "insert typical pleading for any reviews here". Thank you :-D

Biggest kisses to Anna as always for being generally wondrous, and muchos possible gratitude to returning reviewers who make us feel we should bother: Lesbiassparrow, KenzieGal, TinyStar, Mealz, Carrie, blondie, CARBYfan, starbright

~*~*~*~

**Old Faces and New Phases**

~*~
    
    _"I feel stupid - but I know it won't last for long_
    
    _I've been guessing - I coulda been guessin' wrong_
    
    _You don't know me now_
    
    _I kinda thought that you should somehow_
    
    _Does that whole mad season get ya down_
    
    _I feel stupid but it's something that comes and goes_
    
    _I've been changin' - think it's funny how now one knows_
    
    _We don't talk about - the little things that we do without_
    
    _When that whole mad season comes around"_

~*~

_Start of ER-shift, morning_

_"If you still plan on going back to med-school you'll get experience here that will put you way ahead when you come back as a student."_

Well, thanks a lot Dr Weaver. But who said I was going to go back to med-school?

Yeah, ok that's right; I did.

But how exactly are you meant to tell your supervisor, whose reference determines whether you ever pass this class and who signs off on your pay-cheques, that you won't be able to afford to go back to med-school for about another two years thanks to the jackass-git you made the mistake of marrying when you were surely old enough to know better?

I **liked** OB. I knew what I was doing up there, I was a member of the team; I had friends up there. Not like here where every step I took as a student people were watching me, checking up on me, not trusting me to do it right. Also, the patients in OB don't tend to anything approaching a similar state of insanity or violence as the ones down here seem to. What a change of departments.

Isn't there a law or something which says that you're supposed to be allowed to choose your job *yourself*? Or did I not get the memo which said County was an exception and permitted to make it's staff do whatever the management wants without any other cares?

I guess that I do know some of the people down here well from my student days – but that's not necessarily a good thing. Having mucked up even the simplest procedures that I could normally do with my eyes closed as an ER student, they might not be so convinced that I can do my job properly.

At least Dr Kovac and Carter are down here, two physicians with whom I've already got an easy camaraderie and can joke and whine with. Two very different people I get the impression, but they're both guys I feel a sense of companionship with and with whom my relationship is relaxed enough for me to not feel uncomfortable about the sudden 270˚ turn my life has taken in the past couple of weeks. It's always nice to have friends at work whom you can whine to about anything, and who can understand and try and cheer you up. Friends who you can share jokes with and who you can chat with.

Maybe it'll be better for Carter if I am down here all the time – it'll be easier for him to find me at short notice anyway if he suddenly needs to talk, especially as he's now going to be constantly in the place where the cause of his addiction happened, where his addiction began, and where it caught him up. Probably not the best means of rehabilitation according to any theories, but I understand what he means when he insists that he needs to get back to a semblance of normality and prove to himself and everybody else that he can do it. He seems to only just about be coping with the restrictions placed on him by Dr Weaver and Dr Greene though – I understand their difficulties, but I hope he doesn't find the fencing all around every single one of his actions at work more chaffing than he can stand. I think he has enough pride and stubbornness to get through this, but I worry that he's going to find it harder than he thinks. The problem is that there is so little I can actually say which could help him, all the sponsor talk from AA tends to be meaningless cliches; but there's nothing else to say. But then, maybe I worry too much, and he'll accept the new rules and regulations and become more accustomed to them as the days go on. I hope so, for his sake.

~*~

_Mid-ER-shift, afternoon_

Damn.

Please god she doesn't hold it against me.

I don't think she will. Weaver's never seemed the type. She always finds enough new failings in people to blast them about without harking back to their past mistakes.

_"I'm not a med-student any more. I can't."_

_"Just do it!"_

Why did I do it? Did I want to prove something to somebody? What to whom? That I could have made a good doctor? That I am a capable professional? That I'm not generally stupid? To the nurses? To Dr Kovac? To me?

A sigh of exasperation breaks from me. Louder than it should have been, someone might have heard. Not that they seem to – despite the eternal ER gossip-machine it

Oh, who knows. Regrets – some people say they're awful, that they're a waste of time, that lingering on them in your thoughts makes the past worse. Me, I say that they're good. Without regretting anything, you'll repeat it.

God knows I've made that mistake before.

~*~

_End of ER-shift, evening_

A sudden jerk of movement; unforeseen by my brain or my heart. It's another part of my body altogether which seems to be controlling me right now. A piece of myself I tend to squash as much as possible because the last time I followed it I ended up in a relationship which helped a great deal to accelerate the apparently inevitable destruction of my life.

What am I, 13 again?

I never really fell into the typical teenager-ish, giggling over boys and obsessing over my crushes phase. Is this my mentality's way of telling me I missed a normal childhood? Cos, you know, I think I knew that already. And from what I've seen, some stuff, like this, I was quite happy to have missed out on.

I know better than to believe one dark, handsome, mysterious knight on a white horse can come charging into my life and slay all the dragons tormenting my mind. I **do** know better. I just seem to have a hard time convincing my sub-conscious of that when I'm around him. And when I'm around him, my sub-conscious seems to control what I do without asking me whether it's rational or not.

What the hell did I do? Christ.

In a way, I'm giggling madly at myself for my actions – both for being so stereotypical of a teenage-style crush and for being so out of character for me. I've really no idea what just happened – but even though it was embarrassing, I guess, I didn't want to curl up and die. I don't know if that's because I do find Luka attractive, something which I'm not sure I'm really ready to admit anyway, or because he didn't seem to mind and his laughter appeared to be similar to mine, giggling at the situation and not at me.

He is sweet, he is kind, understanding, sympathetic. He has a sense of humour and he's undeniably attractive. It's probably not hard to work out why I'm beginning to like him as maybe more than a friend, but it is strange that I actually acted on it.

~*~

_Home, night_

The apartment is dark and silent, the heating is broken, the place is a mess. I don't seem to have the energy to keep it more than passably clean right now. It's not like anyone's going to see it. The answering-machine is flashing alarm-red as it generally is when I come home after putting in too many hours for my sanity at work, but I can't be bothered with the reality of my existence right now and ignore it – it's unlikely to be anything important, more likely to be my landlord about some tiny detail or telemarketers trying to provide me with some uninvited company in my evenings of content solitude.

I collapse onto my couch – ancient and battered and faded into an almost colourless beige it may be, but it's comfortable and that's all I require from it. Actually, comfort and continuity are all I require from life, but even these simple joys seem to constantly elude me. The remote for the television is on the small table next to me, a couple of mugs with coffee stains around the inside, which I must wash-up when I can find the energy to accomplish it?. I flick the television on, and wander through the channels, searching for anything which will provide some company for my evening and not try to tax my emotions or my brain beyond the over-stretched state they're already in from today's upheavals. A news programme, an over-hyped reality show, a rates-topping drama, an investigative documentary into abortion, a shopping programme, a teeny-bopper indie music video. Nothing that I can face watching now.

I pick up the phone and begin to dial the number of one of my friends to talk through today's events, but then realise that I've no idea what I would say. They would sympathise with my sudden shift in departments, but I'm not so sure anymore that I don't welcome it. Maybe it will be better. Maybe it will be the change my life needs right now according to all the amateur psycho-analysis I hear expounded daily. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe it will all just be the same plot and same dialogue in a different setting with different characters.

And the matter of the day which is most pre-occupying my mind is actually Luka I discover, and I've no idea at all what I would say about him and about what's going on; if anything is going on.

I give up on trying to sort out my mind and hit the 'play' button on the answer phone as I wander through to the kitchen and fill the kettle. Tea. Soothing, comforting.

The tinny voice of the woman who was recorded or programmed into machines all-over follows me as I pad barefoot around the kitchen, avoiding looking directly at the pile in the sink. It's not over-flowing yet, and while I'll probably do it tonight because I dislike chaos, I'm not doing it now.

_"You have 5 new messages."_

One from a friend, confirming the arrangements for tomorrow night. One from the plumber I called to try to get someone to fix the leaking shower, which I've lost patience with. One from a telemarketer; as expected. I do like it when I'm right. And then a voice floats through the apartment that I wasn't expecting.

_"Hey Abby, it's me. Um, Richard. I guess you're at work, and I don't want to deal with this there, and I'm sure you're as keen to talk to me as I am to talk to you. I've spoken to my lawyer, and you can't force the tuition money out of me yet; there's a grace period of two years. You've got a job so you're in a better situation than a lot of the country anyway. So, um, yeah. That's it. I guess I'll speak to you at some point."_

Everything around me seems to stop. My feet, my brain, the air, my world.

Bastard.

God, I hate him. 

But then, I don't know if I do. I remember how he held me after Maggie had gone off again, I remember how he made me laugh, I remember how it worked. To begin with, anyway. And it seemed that maybe I could be normal, maybe I could have a decent life, maybe I would fit in with the rest of the world one day.

Well, I guess I'm just not that lucky. Nor am I totally sure if I want to be.

Ah well, screw it. I knew I couldn't force the tuition money out of him right now, and to be honest, once I'd thrown a few things and blasted at him, I didn't particularly want to. It's easier just to let it go, easier just to watch and wait. Easier to not chase something, to not fight something.

I've never chased anything, always let it come to me, always just let it happen. Well, except for Luka. Oops. Even though I'm grinning when I think of it, I'm still not too sure what really happened there. 

Though he is a nice guy. And maybe that's what would be good. A new life, no old mistakes, nothing to haunt me from before.

And I try desperately to find my pessimism, to find the cynicism that is fundamental to my soul and tells me that my life is never going to be good, is never going to go particularly well. Which prepares me for when my life screws up and doesn't let me be knocked down to dust and ashes. Which holds me back from confronting the emotions of my reality, from letting any of it matter too deeply to me. And in many ways it's better not to hope for more because then the wishes you have built are not knocked down and ground to dust beneath the feet of others. 

Where's it gone? Why has it left me?

_Eli, eli, lamai sabbachthani?_

_My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?._

Sigh. Doesn't Catholic school brainwashing rock. It can be nice to know stuff that others don't, but I wish I knew more that would be useful in my life, help me to understand any of the stuff that's going on.

I don't need anyone, I don't need anything. I can make it on my own, I always have up until now, and I'm not about to quit just yet.

~*~
    
    _So why ya gotta stand there_
    
    _Looking like the answer now_
    
    _It seems to me - you'd come around_
    
    _I need you now_
    
    _Do you think you can cope_
    
    _You figured me out - I'm lost and I'm hopeless_
    
    _Bleeding and broken - though I've never spoken_
    
    _I come undone - in this mad season_

~*~*~*~

**Author's Note**: The song used is 'Mad Season' by Matchbox 20; because it's a gorgeous song, I love it, and the lyrics fit really nicely. I think it's difficult now to see the Luby relationship as it started when we've got so much hindsight now.

This is quite a short post-ep, hopefully I'll have to crushed this writer's block enough by next time to write a slightly longer one!

Thanks to everyone who has read, remember to check out Anna's brilliant Carter POV post-ep for this episode. And please, please, please send a line to say what you thought about them to us. All flames will be gratefully added to the ever-growing barbeque fund.


End file.
